My Drawings by John Bowden

[Bowdenja]

At the request of our famous Beast of Burden, I will post up some of my drawings.

A little info first, I've been drawing since I was 4, yes my mom saved my first drawing and Yes! it was airplane..... well kinda...... it was airplane-ish.

Anyway I got the talent from her because she could draw anything....... I can drawn pretty much whatever I wanted...... except for people's faces. Can't get them right to save my life....... in high school I got hooked on pen & ink drawings, but being ham-handed it always took several pages to get what I wanted, because of mistakes, or smears.

Fastfoward to about 2007, and I find a program called InkScape. WOW! A computer program that lets me put lines on a screen and if I don't like it, erase it and keep what's right. I must be in heaven! This must be the first time in PC history that a computer actually saved paper!! I've been putting lines on the screen ever since.

So that's about it........ all the lines you see in the drawings are put there by me using this program. No automatic converting of anything it's all done by my finger and my mouse, one click at a time.

I'll post up some of the early work and what I've done lately. There are a couple of repeats of the same aircraft from then till now.

You'll see that there has been some improvement......... well I think there's been some improvement. You'll notice that some of them have a couple of colors in them, I first called them splash drawings. I think it addes to the overall impact of the drawing, but I also learned to keep the colors to just one or two. Anymore and they start to look like pages from a coloring book!

Anyway......... here are some from my works. You can see more by clicking the "My Drawings" in my signature.

Thanks for looking and I hope you enjoy them.

John Bowden





























P.S.
I do ships too..........



That should be enough for now...........

Thanks for looking

Mr. Bowden, I have been a fan of your drawings for so many years, to see them here, is just beyond words. Post as many as you wish, there could never be too many. I feel you really capture the souls of the subjects you draw. Something missing in so much of what is offered these days.

[lehcyfer]

Beautiful!

[Bowdenja]

Thanks, glad you like them.

[silveroxide]

It has been a while since I peruse your art work. Until now, I did not know that they are not line and ink drawings, but computer drawn. While I can draw, sketch and paint, I have had problems putting my drawings on the computer screen and doing it by pixels. I would much rather draw it by hand and fine tune it on the computer. Great job and my admiration for your fine art work.

Do you use one of those electronic drawing pads with a pen for this?

[Bowdenja]

Originally Posted by Zathros

Do you use one of those electronic drawing pads with a pen for this?

Nope.......... tried them once, but I've used a mouse for so long I'm better with it.

You've heard about the old dog and new tricks right?? Well I'm gray around the mouth.

If you look at my earlier work from '07 you will notice that the curved lines are really a series of short straight lines, then I learned what a bezier curve was, and that's when they went away and a single curved line replaced them.

john

I'm curious as to what software you draw with. There are so many programs. I have seen people spend way too much money and produce such mediocre work, and others do the opposite. I can't draw worth beans. Of course, anyone who works with Rhino uses Bezier splines for NURBS modeling. I still couldn't draw the way you do, though I could probably extract a model from some of those illustrations. Looks like Art to me.

[Bowdenja]

I use InkScape......... but you could do what I do in any software that lets you draw a line.......... I use InkScape because it is vectored and therefore scales up or down (re-sizes) without losing details.

Thanks for the info. Some people are so secretive about what they use. Vector drawings are a gift to those who make models!

[Bowdenja]

I understand what you meen........... but for me anyway......... there is no need to be secretive........... the software only allows ME to draw. Not visa-versa.

Starting out with a blank white screen and then using pictures for references...... now you understand why I have such an extensive reference library, both hardbound and electronic.

I've got about 1 TB of aircraft pictures pics along............... never mind what my wife complains about falling out of the book shelves

john

[CF-FZG]

Wow John, some superb art work

Absolutely love the front view of the Avenger
This might be a bit rude, but do you have side view too


Mark.